Hello Hirst – Northumberland
Published 10 April 2024
Applies to England
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Partnership for People and Place
The PfPP programme has piloted a new approach to cross-government working to improve local outcomes and efficiency of policy and programmes designed and delivered in place. PfPP funded 13 local government partners to deliver pilot projects focusing on hyper-local issues that could be tackled through better central or local government coordination. The overall objective of the PfPP programme was to test whether closer working between different central government departments and local places can bring measurable benefits to people who live there.
Local background – Northumberland
The Hirst estate in Ashington has experienced decades of decline, with significant health and wellbeing disparities. Six of Ashington’s 17 lower super output areas rank in the 10% most deprived. The original intention of Hello Hirst was to improve school readiness, enrichment activity, parental engagement, and household support, including employment, by developing locally and nationally relevant activities and outcomes. The project aimed to:
- Support families, children and young people to increase school readiness and work together to develop impactful support provision.
- Deliver a commissioning model that is community led, cost effective and levers local assets for best value for money locally and nationally.
Central government involvement
The Northumberland team aimed to establish a clear communication channel with central government partners to address various education and employment policies including the Early Years curriculum and targeted funding for Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations. The pilot team hoped to work with central government partners, to collaboratively agree on policy priorities, develop a shared understanding of barriers and test new ways of working to address these challenges.
The Northumberland team successfully engaged partners from DfE to participate in the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF+) programme sprint, providing an opportunity for 14 teenagers in Northumberland to inform national HAF+ policy. While the project made other attempts to directly engage central government partners, the pilot team felt they lacked supporting evidence to build a stronger case to influence policy and guidance.
| Delivery plans | Meetings | Visits | Involvement in delivery |
|---|---|---|---|
| DLUHC, DWP, DfE, HO, MoJ, NHSE, DHSC (OHID) were mentioned in the initial delivery plan. | DLUHC, DWP, DHSC (OHID), DfE, NHSE, DWP were involved in ad hoc meetings with the project team. | DfE and DLUHC attended two stakeholder meetings on site. | DfE |
What was delivered?
The project organised group sessions involving parents, children, local schools, and other partners in the Hirst area to address concerns related to food solutions, school readiness and toilet training alongside other events/activities including:
- School readiness events (Summer 2022) engaged 150 families
- Halloween Breakfast event engaged 48 families and the Happy Christmas event engaged 208 families
- Teen Fridays attended by 35 teenagers
- Fun foodies sessions for supporting food solutions attended by 24 families
- Slow cooker sessions attended by 12-15 families
- Imagination sessions with 148 families over eight weeks attending FunFridays
In response to this community engagement, the project team worked with local parents to create a journal and story book that encourages toilet training. Five families and four stakeholders attended the Toilet Training sessions and there were 84 attendees at the Toilet Training launch event. Additionally, Hello Hirst has been actively promoting the significance of toilet aids in local community venues and businesses.
Hello Hirst engaged DfE to take part in a HAF+ sprint involving 14 young people across Northumberland. The HAF+ spring was an opportunity for these young people to co-design a policy response for DfE’s National HAF+ programme. Participants visited London to meet with key dignitaries and speak with young people from other parts of the UK.
The Northumberland team developed a new local commissioning model based on learning through the delivery of HAF. This has secured and administered over £2m of additional investment through Shared prosperity funding, Health Inequalities Integrated Care Board funding, and NHCR Wellbeing fund. The VCS commissioning model aims to provide flexible, robust local commissioning while maintaining proportionate governance and outcomes reporting. This aims to increase access for smaller community organisations and groups to access hyper local and micro funding at best value for funders, investors, and local economy.
Hello Hirst developed a new framework for Northumberland’s secondary age HAF offer connected to employability and life skills. Young families have had input into to the early years strategy and have more clarity and input on school readiness.
Local communities
The HAF+ design sprint offered a unique opportunity for participants to venture independently outside of Northumberland. This was the first time some of the young people involved had been outside of the North East. Reflecting on this experience, the pilot leads observed a significant impact on participants’ self-assurance. They highlighted how this experience was empowering for participants who had a platform to influence national policy and interact with senior national leaders. The pilot team emphasised that participants felt “heard” and “valued,” highlighting the personal benefits of empowering communities, considered “distant” from Whitehall to shape policy and programmes that influence them.
Those kids didn’t think that anybody wanted to hear what they had to say. They just thought everybody in a suit was more important and higher up than them. And that’s transformational for those children.
[Pilot lead]
Delivery partners & local government
Northumberland Council’s new VCS funding model has been used to commission partners for HAF, HAF+ and Northumbria Healthcare Trust. This has allowed Northumberland Council to develop an architecture to better manage and administer micro-grants that reduces administrative application barriers and improves funding access for smaller local community organisations. This enabled the Council to engage new residents who have connections with smaller organisations. The Council has an interest in exploring how this works at a national level for funding directed at community and place.
PfPP was considered by pilot leads to have accelerated and aided the implementation of the model by providing:
A sounding board and professional senate, confidence building around stepping into the unknown, and brand gravitas.
[Pilot lead]